primordial cell as the oak a thousand years old is one and the
same plant with the acorn out of which it has grown. This is
easily understood, but will, I trust, be made to appear simpler
presently.

When Linus says, "All things are unity, and each portion is All;
for of one integer all things were born," it is impossible for
plain people-who do not wish to use words unless they mean the
same things by them as both they and others have been in the
habit of meaning-to understand what is intended. How can each
portion be all? How can one Londoner be all London? I know that
this, too, can in a way be shown, but the resulting idea is too
far to fetch, and when fetched does not fit in well enough with
our other ideas to give it practical and commercial value. How,
again, can all things be said to be born of one integer, unless
the statement is confined to living things, which can alone be
born at all, and unless a theory of evolution is intended, such
as Linus would hardly have accepted?

Yet limit the "all things" to "all living things," grant the
theory of evolution, and explain "each portion is All" to mean
that all life is akin, and possesses the same essential
fundamental characteristics, and it is surprising how nearly
Linus approaches both to truth and intelligibility.

It may be said that the animate and the inanimate have the same
fundamental substance, so that a chair might rot and be absorbed
by grass, which grass might be eaten by a cow, which cow might be
eaten by a man; and by similar processes the man might become a
chair; but these facts are not presented to the mind by saying